The Malik Report

Games 1 and 2 of the AHL's Calder Cup Final series between the Grand Rapids Griffins and Syracuse Crunch were...An adventure...In terms of officiating, but AHL president Dave Andrews essentially told the Grand Rapids Press's Peter J. Wallner that his officials totally made the right calls in every aspect (save the whole adding two minutes to the second period of Game 2 thing):

“We’ve been hung out to dry for some reason and the referees have been hung out to dry,” the commissioner said about the referees before Wednesday’s Game 3 at Van Andel Arena before the Grand Rapids Griffins and Syracuse Crunch. “Case closed.”

"This is the best officials available and I believe firmly in games 1 and 2 they did a never good job. They called a very good standard. They let the players play and called penalties when they had to. Believe me, I’m as critical as anybody in the world of our officials in the finals.”

In Game 1, a Syracuse goal was a waved off called by a player in the crease, The play was called on the ice but confirmed following a video review by refs Terry Koharski and Mark Lemelin.

...

On the first goal, Andrews said: “That goal was reviewed by the NHL hockey staff and reviewed by our hockey staff and the player was definitely in the crease and it was in the judgment of the official to determine if he thought the goal was impaired in trying to make the save. Obviously he thought he was and the goal was waved off, which is completely the correct call.”

...

In Game 2, there were two controversial calls in the second period: A goal by the Griffins’ Tomas Jurco that hit the crossbar. The contention was the puck did not cross the line. The second – and the one that has received considerable attention – was a delayed call on a goal for Syracuse late in the period. After a stoppage of play on an icing call with 59.5 left, a shot by J.T Brown was reviewed by Lemelin and determined the shot went through the netting for a goal.

On the second goal, Andrews said: “There were two video replays in Game 2, which apparently people believe weren’t accurately called by the referees, and both were correctly called. Our hockey operations vice president reviewed both replays, both calls were correct.”

As for the clock keeping error, which added 2:13 to the period, he said: “It had two minutes and whatever number of seconds which shouldn’t have been added to the clock. The impact on the game because of that error was zero.”

The second intermission screen is the whole, “AHL Live: We’ll Be Right Back” spiel. There’s nothing to worry about as I’m sure Bob McGilligan or whatever the *#$%@& his name is and the Cleveland Cavaliers dude are probably talking about how the Crunch need to get one more puck past that goalie Mursak.

Damn! The power in my ‘hood goes out for about ten minutes, but noooo the ISP also conked out and I couldn’t recover it until just two minutes ago.

I see a 4-2 Griffins win. I see Hoggan’s goal on the replay and oh my balls, what a fuching goal. The Crunch tried to rough him up after the goal because his momentum carried him into Desjardins who then proceeds to pound on him, but Hoggan ain’t having none of that. Just skates right out to find his teammates to celebrate the goal. Uncle Mike’s kind of player.

Onto Game Four. Finish it, Griffs!

Posted by
SYF
from the C7.R, flyin' low and feelin' mean on 06/12/13 at 08:42 PM ET

The Griffins and AHL will post some highlights in a couple of hours. The Griffins plain old persisted and played simpler, smarter hockey as time went on—and Hoggan and Mrazek took the team on their backs. Great stuff.

The Wings can’t do much about Mursak. His KHL contract started in May, Amur Khabarovsk will start its training camp in late July and exhibition season in August, and they’re probably paying him between $1-2 million USD, mostly tax-free (and they give him an apartment and a leased car free of charge, too)...So the Wings can’t out-compete the KHL for his services.

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